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March 29, 2013

Given below are a few articles on the paradigm changing decision to establish a Brics Bank outlining the architecture to counter US led West's domination and exploitation of the South including India post WWII and Bretton Woods.

The Brics leaders have come very strongly against the actions of NATO countries and the paragons of democracy and freedom led by GCC countries' twit gas island Qatar with Riyadh at the back .

Ankara whose ruling AKP , getting ever more Islamist and financed by Riyadh has messed up its foreign policy and is getting sucked into the Syrian quagmire .It has 25% unhappy Kurds ( who see autonomous Kurds in north Iraq ) Kurds also straddle along long Turkish Syrian border .Turkey also has 15% Alevis , similar in belief to the ruling Alawaite grouping with majority Sunni support in Syria ( they have seen what has happened in Libya after the regime change –by West -chaos and murders and division of the country )

Brics leaders have also warned the West ( look at the leaders of economically drowning UK and France with fate not much different awaiting them as in Cyprus ) on any foolish action on Iran .

It is possible that SCO might energise itself and even hold an exercise with Iran as it had done when US led regime changes had reached Kyrgyzstan in early 2000s. Now even the US puppet in Georgia has lost power .

There is a good piece on Chinese new boss extending hand of friendship to India (Washington will energise its spoons and pimps you see on India' corporate TV channels.

I have also added a piece by the ultra neoliberal Forbes, naturally cribbing about the Brics successful summit.

BRICS birth a new South-South revolution in Durban

March 28, 2013 Manish Chand, or RIR

The Durban summit will go down in history as a defining moment in the trajectory of the South-South cooperation and marked the maturation of the BRICS grouping.

In the balmy coastal city In the balmy coastal city of Durban which birthed the Gandhi revolution over a hundred years ago, the seeds of a new rejuvenated South-South movement have been sown, with the BRICS leaders launching a path-breaking Development Bank that seeks to uplift over three billion people in the developing and emerging world.

The two-day summit culminated with a unanimous decision by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to set up a BRICS-led Development Bank that will finance development and infrastructure development not just in emerging economies, but also in the larger global South.

In another important step to cement the intra-BRICS economic architecture, the leaders of the world's five emerging economies, which account for over a quarter of global GDP, also endorsed a $100-billion contingency reserve arrangement that will be deployed as a last resort in case of a serious crisis afflicting a BRICS country.

"We have decided to enter formal negotiations to establish a BRICS-led new development Bank based on our own considerable infrastructure needs, which amounts to around $4.5 trillion over the next five years, but also to cooperate with other emerging markets and developing countries in future," said South African President Jacob Zuma, the host of the 5th BRICS summit.

"Our resolve extends further to also establish a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement. We are working towards related initiatives in our economic deliberations to further strengthen our intra-BRICS cooperation," he said.

The 5th BRICS summit has proved to be the most substantive one, with important headline-hogging outcomes that have the potential to create a new dialectics of development and geopolitics in the mutating international order.

Besides the bank and the contingency reserve arrangement, the summit also saw important steps in deepening the framework of intra-BRICS cooperation. These pivotal steps included the setting up of a 25-member BRICS Business Council and the BRICS Think Tanks Council that seeks to create new pathways of South-South economic cooperation.

For India, which took the lead in shaping the Development Bank, the fruition of the key ideas that flowed from the 2012 New Delhi summit was a moment of special pride and resonance.

"It gives me great satisfaction to note that one of the ideas that we first discussed at New Delhi, that of instituting a mechanism to recycle surplus savings into infrastructure investments in developing countries, has been given a concrete shape during the Durban Summit," said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. "Our Finance Ministers will now work to develop the details of this project," he said.

The Indian prime minister underlined that the discussions at the Durban summit "demonstrated the similarity of our perspectives on many global issues, such as the situation in West Asia and efforts to rekindle global economic growth."

Talking to Indian journalists, India's Finance Minister P. Chidambaram explained key features of the Development Bank. "We (the finance ministers of the five countries) gave a big idea and that idea has now become a reality -- that is the BRICS development bank," Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told journalists here, soon after the conclusion of the plenary session on the second day of the two-day summit.

He added that the finance ministers and officials of the two countries have been given a 12-month time-frame to work out modalities like the capital of the proposed bank, its domicile and the governance structure.

"We should have a nearly complete document when the leaders meet again in Brazil next March," he added.

Delineating contours of the contingency reserve arrangement, Chidambaram said the bulk of the money, that is $41 billion, will be pledged by China, $18 billion each will come from India, Brazil and Russia, while South Africa has agreed to $5 billion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the decision to launch the Development Bank and made a robust pitch for accelerating multi-polarity in international relations.

Syria and Iran

The Durban summit ended on a high note, with all the leaders of the emerging economies reaffirming their political will to take intra-BRICS cooperation to new heights and to transform the grouping into a powerful platform for a counter-narrative on key international issues.

This was reflected in the BRICS strong position on Syria and the warning to the West against military adventurism in Iran.

"We express our deep concern with the deterioration of the security and humanitarian situation in Syria and condemn the increasing violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law as a result of continued violence," said the Declaration that was issued at the end of the first BRICS summit held on the African soil.

"We believe that the Joint Communiqué of the Geneva Action Group provides a basis for resolution of the Syrian crisis and reaffirm our opposition to any further militarization of the conflict," the declaration said. "In view of the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syria, we call upon all parties to allow and facilitate immediate, safe, full and unimpeded access to humanitarian organisations to all in need of assistance. We urge all parties to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers."

Against the backdrop of the West-driven agenda of regime change in Syria, the BRICS leaders positioned the grouping as the voice of moderation and consensus-building.

"A Syrian-led political process leading to a transition can be achieved only through broad national dialogue that meets the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Syrian society and respect for Syrian independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty as expressed by the Geneva Joint Communiqué and appropriate UNSC resolutions," said the declaration.

"We support the efforts of the UN-League of Arab States Joint Special Representative," said the declaration.

In a clear warning to the West, leaders from emerging powers also voiced their opposition to threat of military action against Tehran, amid ominous noises emanating from the US and Israel that they will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. "We are concerned about threats of military action as well as unilateral sanctions," the BRICS leaders said at the end of a two-day summit.

"We are concerned about threats of military action as well as unilateral sanctions. We note the recent talks held in Almaty and hope that all outstanding issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme will be resolved through discussions and diplomatic means," said the declaration.

The sharp stand taken by BRICS on the situation in Syria and the Iranian nuclear programme underlines the transformation of a grouping that started off as a forum focused on mitigating the global financial slowdown, but has emerged as a powerful pressure group in international politics that advocates multi-polarity in international relations and multilateralism in resolving global peace and security issues.

The Durban summit will go down in history as a defining moment in the trajectory of the South-South cooperation and marked the maturation of a grouping that started off as a forum focused on global economic governance issues, but has widened its horizon to include an ambitious all-encompassing global agenda to rekindle development in the emerging world and reclaim the weight of the global South in the international arena.

The writer is Editor-in-Chief of India Writes www.indiawrites.org. He is in Durban to report and analyse issues and outcomes of the 5th BRICS summit.

DURBAN, South Africa, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said here Wednesday that the world needs the common development of China and India and can provide sufficient room for the two neighbors' development.

Xi made the remarks during a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of a summit of BRICS countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- in the South African port city of Durban.

China and India, as the world's two largest developing nations, have a similar historic mission to boost their social and economic development, Xi said.

Both countries are in an important period of strategic opportunities, he said, adding that China-India relations have broad prospects for development.

China, which regards its ties with India as one of the most important bilateral relationship, commits itself to pushing forward the two countries' strategic cooperative partnership, Xi said.

He called on the two sides to maintain high-level reciprocal visits and contacts, make full use of political dialogues and consultations at various levels to strengthen strategic and political communication.

China and India should broaden exchanges and cooperation between their armed forces and deepen mutual military and security trust, Xi said.

The Chinese president said the two countries, with the help of such cooperative mechanisms as strategic and economic dialogue, should also discuss their cooperation on large-scale infrastructure projects.

Xi also called for enhancing people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and broadening youth exchanges.

He said the two sides should strengthen coordination and cooperation within the United Nations, BRICS, the G20 and other multilateral groupings, support each other's participation in regional cooperation, and promote peace, stability and development in Asia.

On the border issue, Xi said China and India should improve and make good use of the mechanism of special representatives to strive for a fair, rational solution framework acceptable to both sides as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, he said, the two sides should continue to safeguard peace in their border areas and prevent the issue from affecting bilateral relations.

Singh expressed admiration for China's achievements in development, saying that developing good-neighborly and friendly relations with China and realizing common development along with China is a priority of the country's foreign policy.

India hopes to continue to maintain high-level exchanges, dialogue and communication with China, he added.

He also voiced the hope that the two countries would respect each other's core interests and major concerns, deepen mutual strategic trust, strengthen coordination and cooperation on international affairs, and safeguard peace and stability in the region and the world at large.

Singh said his country, which adheres to an independent foreign policy, will not be used as a tool to contain China, adding that India is willing to make concerted efforts with China to show the world that they are cooperative partners instead of rivals.

India will abide by political guidelines set by both sides and seek a solution to the bilateral border issue from a strategic height with a commitment to safeguard peace in their border areas, he said.

The Indian prime minister said his country recognizes the Tibet Autonomous Region is a part of the Chinese territory and that India will not allow Tibetans to conduct political activities against China in India.

Below is an expected write up in the Forbes magazine ,a line which Indian proxies will put out on India's Baniya controlled channels

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and the latest addition to the BRIC acronym South Africa are meeting in that country's city of Durban this week following a string of new commitments between the countries.

One look and it's easy to see two things: China is the star of the show. And these countries have almost nothing in common.

Even China's Russia and India neighbors don't speak the same language. India and China have border disputes. Trade with Russia is geared towards the usual item: oil and gas.

On the deal side, China has been most active signing agreements pre-Durban.

For starters, Russia signed a long awaited deal with the Chinese military to sell 24 Sukhoi SU-35 multirole fighter planes and four electric-diesel submarines. South Africa signed agreements with China on Tuesday for construction of an oil refinery and upgrading the country's rail and port networks, mostly to ship commodities Eastward. China Development Bank said it will fund the modernization of South Africa's freight rail company Transnet for $5 billion, Bloomberg reported today. Then there's China and Brazil's $30 billion currency swap deal. As new as this may seem, ex-Premier Wen Jiabao promised this with Brazil last year at the Rio+20 environmental conference. Central Banks of Brazil and China are to hold each other's currency to pay for trade, sidestepping some dollar volatility.

Lastly, the much talked about BRIC Bank remains a flop heading into the Summit.

The fivesome cannot agree on their individual share of funding for a development bank geared towards building their economies. IT was a stickler last year and is again as each of these strange bedfellows come from disparate economic realities and have very different styles of government. They want to set up their own development bank to reduce their reliance on Western financial institutions.

Although many people don't realize this, Brazil's Development Bank, known as BNDES, has a larger loan portfolio than the World Bank. In 2010, BNDES disbursed a record R$168.4 billion, which is $84 billion given today's exchange rate. In 2010, the real was even stronger, so in dollar times, it was above $90 billion. By Comparison, the World Bank lent $44.2 billion. BNDES already lends to projects throughout Latin America, and is increasingly helping local multinationals tackle the rest of the world.

So these are the five countries meeting in Durban. Three commodities producers and two major commodities consumers, all trying to avoid the calamity of the Western world.

This is their fifth time meeting. And although some foreign policy watchers with a head for conspiracy theories might see this as an anti-American cartel, it is far from it. They are nothing more than political and economic opportunists who know what the U.S., Europe and Japan also know: the growth of the world is coming from emerging markets. These are some of the biggest, if not most politically motivated.

The theme of this year's summit is: BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialization.

Another agreement was reportedly inked between South Africa and Russia, whereas South Africa will service hundreds of Russian-made helicopters operating in sub-Saharan Africa at a facility in Johannesburg run by state-owned Denel Aviation Company, Shanghai Daily reported today. The service center will also train helicopter technicians and pilots, helping increase helicopter engineering talent in Africa.

In September 2006, four original BRIC nations met in New York. On May 16, 2008, Yekaterinburg, Russia hosted a full-scale diplomatic meeting.

In June 2009, Brazil, Russia, India and China again met in Yekaterinburg.

Early steps were taken to end dollar supremacy. Eventual plans may replace it with a global currency or basket of major ones.

In 2010, South Africa joined the BRIC alliance. It was formally invited to do so. The group was renamed BRICS. Annual summits are held.

On March 26 and 27, Durban, South Africa hosted the group's fifth one. More on that below.

Their "mechanism aims to achieve peace, security, development and cooperation. It also seeks to contribute significantly to the development of humanity and establish a more equitable and fair world."

America's economic supremacy is declining. BRICS countries are some of the world's fastest growing.

They comprise a significant economic and political block. They account for over 20% of world GDP.

They're on three continents. They cover more than one-fourth of the world's land mass.

Their population exceeds 2.8 billion. It's 40% of the world total. By 2020 or earlier, China may become the world's largest economy.

By mid-century or sooner, India's predicted to be number three, Brazil number five and Russia number six.

Between 2000 and 2008, BRICS contributed about half of global growth. In the late 1990s, Russia's debt default and Brazil's currency crisis rocked world economies. Today they have vast foreign exchange reserves.

BRICS have more global trade than America. China's the world's largest exporter. India's an information technology powerhouse.

Brazil's a dominant agricultural exporter. It's highly competitive. It has vast amounts of fertile land. It's known as "the world's biggest farm." Russia is oil and gas rich.

"We have agreed to establish the new development bank. The initial capital contribution to the bank should be substantial and sufficient for the bank to be effective in financing infrastructure."

Ahead of the summit, officials said each country may contribute $10 billion for starters. It's aim is to fund infrastructure and other development projects.

It'll operate separately from Western international lending agencies. It'll challenge their global dominance. It'll test how they do business. They prioritize neoliberal harshness.

It includes privatizing state enterprises, selling them at a fraction of their worth, mass layoffs, deregulation, deep social spending cuts, wage freezes or cuts, unrestricted market access for Western corporations, business-friendly tax cuts, trade unionism marginalized or crushed, and harsh recrimination against non-believers.

It strip mines nations for profit. It shifts wealth from public to private hands. It destroys middle class societies. It turns workers into serfs.

It substitutes debt peonage for freedom. A race to the bottom follows. An elite few benefit at the expense of most others. It sacrifices economic growth for private gain. It's the worst of all possible worlds. Nations are transformed into dystopian backwaters.

BRICS have other ideas in mind. They seek a multipolar world. Much work remains to be done. Agreement on details must be finalized. It'll take time to begin operations.

It'll be a second alternative to Western debt bondage. In December 2006, Hugo Chavez proposed a Bank of the South (Banco del Sur).

A November 2007 summit launched it. In September 2009, it was established. Its members include Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay. Plans are to increase initial capitalization.

Member countries pledge to contribute. Full operations are expected to begin later this year. At issue is representing the needs of the South. It'll contribute to its development. It'll do so free from debt bondage.

BRICS Development Bank intends no one country to dominate. Voting rights will reflect equality. Economic growth matters most.

It remains to be seen how plans unfold. Hopefully global changes for the better will follow. They're long overdue. Dominant emerging economies will play leading roles. They're laying the groundwork to do so.

9 comments:

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